Never Underestimate A Girl
by Mac-alicious
Summary: Insights into Sharpay Evans. Five Word inspired drabbles per chapter. Not interconnected.
1. The Answer Is Simple

**A/N: **I've done these kinds of drabble-esque collections before. They were based on couples (ships) as opposed to a single character as this one is. But I've always like Sharpay as a character and I wanted to explore what I thought of her. As with my other collections, these are word inspired paragraphs (drabbles). There are usually five per chapter, six chapters (30 words total). They're usually not connected and I will mention ahead of time if they are connected. Anyway, enjoy! R&R! Thanks! –Mac

**Disclaimer:** I don't own HSM.

**The Answer Was Simple**

**Triple**

She is a triple threat. She sings. She dances. She acts. She had more than enough experience, just from her youth. She had all the options. She could be a pop star, record a chart topping album, and tour the world performing for millions of screaming fans. She could be a movie star, film a blockbuster, walk the red carpet and win an academy award. Or she could land a role on Broadway and put all her talents to use. What would she do? The answer was simple.

**Cake**

She could say she was fine as many times as she wanted to, but her friends knew different. When she and Zeke broke up, she couldn't even look at anything sweet for a month, let alone eat anything sweet. Cookies, brownies, cake (especially cake)…they would never be the same after Zeke. She was devastated by losing him, but she was strong and she could hand on. She would make it alright.

**Wired**

She can't drink coffee. Even though Starbucks is so _in_, she can't touch the stuff. When she drinks caffeine she gets so wired that she can't even sit still. She decided early on that she didn't need the extra boost. She already has more than enough energy to shine on stage. When she finally reached college, she changed her mind and she started drinking the stuff while studying (there's a first time for everything, right?). She spent a week drinking a double shot iced caramel macchiato every hour on the hour. But when her singing started to sound like something akin to Alvin and the Chipmunks on Speed (every time she opened her mouth everything spilled out so fast, she nearly choked on her tongue), she had to discontinue use. _Completely cold turkey_. Her hands shook violently for two weeks, but her jazz hands looked especially great, at the very least.

**Easiest**

In high school, she wasn't the easiest person to be around, she knew. Looking back she wishes she had maybe toned down the drama a bit. But she can't see a problem with being confident in yourself, knowing what you want and going for it, or not letting anything get in your way. She knew more than a few people from her past may have a few choice words to say to her about her past behavior, but at least she could say she was always true to herself.

**Personal**

She tries not to take anything bad said about her personal. When people called her the Ice Queen at East High, she kept telling herself that people were only jealous of her talent. When people called her easy in college, she kept telling herself that those girls were just jealous of her beauty. But when Zeke tells her that she'll never find love because she is too selfish and narcissistic, it hits her so hard she can barely breathe. And it's definitely taken personally.


	2. Never Underestimate A Girl

**A/N: **This is the second set of word inspired drabbles. I guess some of them could be seen as connected, but they really don't have to be (i.e. any of the ones that involve Zeke). Anyway, enjoy! R&R! Thanks! –Mac

**Disclaimer: **I don't own HSM.

**Never Underestimate A Girl**

**Mistake**

She knows her break up with Zeke is a mistake just seconds after doing it. But he's already walking away and she can't bring herself to stop him. She had thought it was the right choice since they were going to different schools and wouldn't see each other very often. She didn't think she could handle that distance, so it was the only thing she could do. But the empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, tells her she was very, very, very wrong.

**Suitable**

After she turns 21, she begins to go out to bars and clubs with regular frequency. Sometimes she goes with Gabriella and the girls from high school. Sometimes she goes with the girls she met while in college. It's easy when it's just _the girls_. But when Gabriella tells her that Troy is coming one time and he's bring all the boys (Zeke included—she hasn't seen him since they broke up after graduation), it's suddenly hard. She spends three hours trying to find a suitable dress, only to wind up wearing the first one she picks up. She does her makeup, washes her face and redoes it at least four times. She changes her hair six times total. Once she's done, finally, before she can even figure out why she went through so much trouble, Gabriella calls to say the boys suddenly came into some last minute tickets to a basketball game and won't be joining them until next time. She's so exhausted from getting ready, that she ends up cancelling as well and goes to bed.

**Exaggerates**

She exaggerates for effect. Her high school musicals always sounded like expensive, extravagant productions akin to a Broadway show. To herself, she called her brief stint on a daytime soap opera as a necessary stepping stone in the golden staircase of her career. But when a casting director makes a comment about inexperience as a reason to not cast her in an up and coming Broadway, her only response is, "You should never underestimate a girl like me." And she's not exaggerating at all.

**Association**

A long time ago, she believed her brother would be ecstatic about his association to her: the true star! Now she realizes why he had so needed to step out of her shadow. It takes years to apologize to him and get him back in her life like he used to be. He wants to be treated as an equal in their relationship, and not like a subordinate (easily replaceable or dismissed). She is more than happy to agree to it. By then, she's ecstatic about her association to _him_.

**Cancel**

Her newest boyfriend stood her up on their first date. She should have taken it as a sign. But she didn't. She rescheduled and they eventually began a relationship. Now they have been together for a few months, and he's began to cancel their dates with inappropriate frequency. She knows she deserves better treatment, in fact she can remember a relationship when she was treated with so much respect it was almost annoying. So after she stands up her boyfriend on their next date and ignores all his calls (hoping he gets the hint), she dials a familiar number.


	3. Broadway, I Have Arrived

**A/N: ** This is the third set of words. Enjoy! R&R! Thanks! -Mac

**Disclaimer:** I don't own HSM.

**Broadway, I Have Arrived**

**Shy**

She is anything but shy, she knows for sure. But she is suddenly nervous when she sees Zeke again for the first time. She smiles weakly and moves forward to hug him—because to not do so would be rude (they were _supposed _to stay friends, though they haven't talked in _years_). When he squeezes her back tightly and holds on just a second longer than appropriate for _just friends_, she blushes. And she's right back where she was on their first date.

**Sang**

She sang in an exhibition-recital thing for one of her theater classes. She had told all her friends and family about it, though she knew most of them would never be able to make it. When the curtains opened, it took her awhile before she could get a clear view of the audience. When she saw Ryan sitting front row center, with his trademark hat dipped low on his head, she smiled widely. He was the last person she thought would make it—he had to have skipped work, at least two classes and caught a plane all the way back to Albuquerque to get there. She had never loved her brother more than she did in that moment. She vowed to find a way to somehow be there for him in the way he was there for her.

**Horizon**

She rents an apartment for her last couple years of college. She had a choice of a few different apartments, and she finally makes a decision after one quick visit to each. The one she ends up moving into isn't as extravagant as the others but the view is amazing. She wakes up the first morning after moving in, makes herself a cup of tea, pulls open her curtains, and watches the sun come up over the horizon.

**Dressing**

The first time she gets her own dressing room, she is giddy with excitement. It has a star and her name right on the door. The first time she sees it, she squeals and jumps up and down (scaring some of the people randomly wandering around backstage). She takes a picture of the door and sends it to all of her friends. She knows it's silly, but she feels like it's a huge accomplishment. It says "Broadway, I have arrived!"

**Descends**

The summer after her first year of college she finally sees Zeke again, after over a year of being apart. It takes awhile but they slowly become friends again. She tries to show him that she has changed, grown up, since they broke up. And eventually, she musters up the courage to tell him that she made a mistake in ever letting him go. He smiles and says he can remedy that—he promptly asks her out to dinner—and gives her a second chance. Of course she says yes. The day of their date she is so nervous that she's afraid that she should never have agreed to this. But when she descends the stairs to meet him, and he looks up at her with _that look_ in his eyes, she knew it was right.


	4. Working Harder For The Yes

**A/N: ** This is the fourth set of words. Enjoy! R&R! Thanks! -Mac

**Disclaimer:** I don't own HSM.

**Working Harder For The Yes**

**Saddened**

She is saddened to leave home to return to college for her second year. It was nice to have summer with her friends and she's not totally keen to going back to being lonely, but she wouldn't shed a tear and she wouldn't regret her choices. When she gets back to her apartment, there are a slew of voicemails on her home phone. She presses play and her sadness lifts, at the sound of all her friends wishing her luck for the new semester.

**Judged**

She has auditioned innumerable times, but when Darbus was the one deciding her fate, she had never felt judged. Now when she auditions and she has to hand her headshot to casting directors, the pressure is almost unbearable. She can take it. She has to take it. She chose this business and she has to learn to accept being judged. She gets some no's, but rejection happens. For every no, she commits herself to working harder for the yes.

**Scare**

She gets the call at two am her time. She is bleary eyed and half asleep when she answers. It's her brother, at home for a visit to their parents in Albuquerque, and the panic in his voice fills her with panic. Their father is in the hospital, heart attack, but it may just be a scare, nothing major, and nothing fatal. Ryan throws around words like mild, observation, and concerns. He says he'll keep her updated and not to come. She goes anyway. She has a show that night, but her understudy can have the show. Family is family.

**Expensive**

She was always given the opportunity to live a luxurious lifestyle. Her parents had never wanted her to want for anything. When she starts college, she lets them pay her tuition and dorm fees, but nothing else. She wants to be allowed to be a starving artist for awhile. She thinks it will teach her something that she wouldn't learn otherwise. So when she gets her first paycheck from a professional performance, the first thing she does is buy something expensive. After so long going without, it feels better and more fulfilling than any extravagant shopping spree she had as a young girl.

**Years**

She spends four years in school, learning and growing. She spends two years doing odd shows and going nowhere. She spends a year feeling depressed about going nowhere. She spends another year recovering, auditioning and crawling forward. She spends the next two years acting in all her favorite shows and soaring toward stardom. At East High's ten year reunion, surrounded by all of her old friends and their accomplishments, she looks back on the ten years and all of her achievements with a smile.


	5. Can't Deny The Results

**A/N: ** This is the fifth set of words. Enjoy! R&R! Thanks! -Mac

**Disclaimer:** I don't own HSM.

**Can't Deny The Results**

**Transformation**

She is in awe of the transformation she goes through before her performance in her very first Broadway play. The makeup, the hair, the costume—she is not herself. She is no longer Sharpay Evans. She is another person altogether. She smiles at her reflection. This is what she lives for. This is her lifelong dream come true. When she steps out on that stage, the audience will recognize her transformation: an ordinary girl from Albuquerque has become a star.

**Imaginary**

When she was a child, she had an imaginary friend. She remembers her imaginary friend being a girl with blonde hair just like her own. The imaginary friend was older, special, and most importantly a Broadway star. She remembers wanting to be just like her imaginary friend when she grew up. It isn't until she has grown up and realized her dreams that it occurs to her that her imaginary friend was her all along.

**Counterparts**

She and Ryan have done everything together since birth. Up until high school, their time apart was minimal. He is her other half. Life is very different when they are on opposite sides of the country. She feels lost without her counterpart. If they weren't both doing something great for themselves, she would be falling apart. Since they are, she tells herself that distance will only make their relationship stronger. And it has made her stronger as an individual.

**Morality**

Some people have questioned her morality. She has made some choices, said some things and done some things that were not always what others considered _right_. It's not so much that they were _wrong_, but they weren't exactly the best decisions. She'll be the first to admit that she toes the line between right and wrong sometimes. Her means are not always selfless, but she can't deny the results.

**Choices**

Faced with tough choices, she has usually gone with the more selfless option. She can't knock the process; it's gotten her where she is today. It's also the reason she is single and without any compelling prospects. So when Zeke comes back into her life and she is faced with the tough choice of continuing life as it is now as a star without responsibility or the more difficult long distance relationship she should pick the first. For the first time in her life, she doesn't take that route.


	6. She Has Won

**A/N: ** This is the final set of words. Enjoy! R&R! Thanks! -Mac

**Disclaimer:** I don't own HSM.

**She Has Won**

**Critics**

The critics are tough on her in their reviews of her performance. They don't go so far as to say she is horrible or that she lacks talent. No, they note that she is still green and needs more professional experience to find her footing. She has to stop reading the reviews. It starts to eat at her, until her friends start to see the show and tell her how great she was. Her friends are some of the most talented people she knows and it is their reviews that she trusts above all.

**Ingenious**

Things eventually start to look up. One of the papers describes her portrayal as ingenious. Another says she breathes new life into a beloved character. Yet another hails her as the 'Next Big Thing.' She is riding a wave of success. It energizes her performance and she keeps getting better and better each time the curtain goes up. The sound of applause fills her ears every time the curtain drops.

**Life**

Life is good. Life is everything she could have wanted. She's not sure how she has been able to juggle her career and a long distance relationship without neglecting either. Somehow she's been able to do it and she is all the better for it. She is more fulfilled than she ever expected she would be. She can see herself enjoying life like this for years to come.

**Crisis**

She is good in a crisis. She's a problem solver. This time, though, the crisis is a little too close to home. And given the occasion, even the smallest crisis feels like the end of the world. This is her _wedding_, for goodness sakes. Everything is supposed to be perfect, but the smallest details keep falling out of place—the food is running late, the colors of the ribbons on the centerpieces are a shade too pink, the band has misplaced its guitars. It doesn't help that the whole thing is going to be publicized. It takes her entire wedding party to talk her down. Even then, she is shaking as she walks down the aisle.

**Prizes**

She has Tonys and Grammys and a Golden Globe on her mantle—as well as various other awards and trophies. She's won nearly everything she's been nominated for, but she knows her real prizes are her husband, her kids, her wonderful brother and all the friends she's kept all these years. She is Sharpay Evans. She is a star, a celebrity, a household name, but she is also a wife, a mother and a friend. She is more than she ever thought she would be. It doesn't matter how one looks at it—she has won.


End file.
